It's not that Wirt doesn't like the woods. As an amateur poet, he appreciates the mysticism of it, the calm atmosphere and the silence. As a forest demon, he appreciates the ability to sink into a tree and hop out of another three miles away.
Still, the feeling of being watched everytime he steps into it is very annoying, especially since he just wants to get some forgotten equipment to Dipper and is trying to focus on feeling his presence in the entirety of the forest covering half the state of Oregon.
"Just come out already, whoever you are" he sighs. He lets his appearance slip a little, just enough to grow his antlers and make his skin grey and barklike, because he can feel the presence behind him isn't human in nature. "I don't want any trouble, do you?"
"Cousin Beast?!"
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"I... Wirt?" Dipper sounds like he does when he deals with one of Mabel's less spectacular ideas, and Wirt cannot help but be preemptively offended by it. A twiggy hand reaches forward from the shadows to move a bishop into one of his knights.
"Yes dear?" He asks. If he moves his queen just one square to the right... "Check"
"Is that the Hidebehind?" when he turns, Dipper's face is sporting a strained smile. "How is it in our living room?"
Wirt waits a little before turning, to give his guest more time to make his movement and go back to hiding behind the sofa.
"Well he can hide anywhere, as long as you have your back turned to him" he explains. "Also he's my cousin on the demon side"
Dipper blinks. Wirt blinks.
A twiggy hand waves from the shadow of the sofa.
"I'll set another plate for dinner. Will my Dungeons Dungeons and more Dungeons be enough for him to hide at the table?"
The hand does a thumbs up.
"Thanks love"
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"Mabel can you explain this?" Ford places a printed photograph on his grand niece's craft desk.
The cryptid site had been mostly dismissive of it and declared it a hoax not an hour after it was published.
Sure the prosthetics for the visible arm and side of the face that are just barely peeking from behidn a shadowed tree look uncannily realistic, but the "creature" is wearing a sweater, come on! It's either a lazy hoax or a creepy fetish and it has no place in the site.
Fort waits until Mabel looks up from her embroidery.
"Oh, that's Wirt's cousin Hide. Wirt asked me to knit him a sweater" she says simply "It's nice isn't it?"
Ford spent over three decades in the demonic plane and kept a tight hold on his soul the entire time, but he can still feel it trying to escape his body as Mabel goes back to her craft without another look.
"It is. Very nice" and he turns around. He doubts he's going to find a book on demonic family trees, but there's no harm in looking just what on Earth his grand nephew is walking into.
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"Yeah but Wirt, we can't just leave him like that" says Greg. It's still odd to think of him as a teenager, but he's growing more each day. They're flying kites by the pond, a third string going into the shadowy cave formed by a couple trees. "Like I get you prefer to live in the woods but you don't even know the rest of the family! You don't know Jason Funderberker, you don't even have our last name!"
"Greg..." Wirt begins, but stops when a raspy whisper comes from the trees. It could be easily mistaken for wind and it's not in a language spoken on Earth either, so Wirt translates "He wants to know what a last name is"
"Ok, that does it" Greg frowns. Wirt rolls his eyes fondly: this is Greg's determined mode "You're coming to our parents' for Thanksgiving. You're part of the family now, we got a spot for you"
Wirt smiles. "You know what Greg? Hide B. McCaughlin does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"
The demonic language does not have many words to imply embarrassment, but the mumble that accompanies the bark-skinned hand's thumbs up is definitely flustered.
Wirt chuckles. Maybe he'll never get completely used to being a demon, but sometimes it's not bad at all.